For any labor market to function properly, clear information is needed to guide decision making; its absence invariably leads to less than optimal decisions and inefficiencies. While the broader labor market is riddled with imperfect information, the teacher labor market is particularly vulnerable--largely for the lack of the most basic…

Effective teachers can have a significant impact on student success; unfortunately, low-income students, students of color, English learners, and students with disabilities are more likely to be assigned to unqualified, less experienced, and less effective teachers. Inequitable access to effective educators is one contributing factor that…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed in 2015, signaled a major shift in the roles of states and districts in supporting school improvement. Under ESSA, state education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs) have more responsibility and flexibility in developing and implementing plans, informed by local context, to support the…

This report, the second installment in Advance CTE's "Connecting the Classroom to Careers," series, explores an issue that is often a stumbling block for K-12 work-based learning--ensuring these experiences are safe and legal for students. This report features New Jersey, Kentucky and California and their approaches to dismantling…

While the United States is simultaneously recovering from a global pandemic and facing a national reckoning of racial injustice, the effects of COVID-19 continue to exacerbate academic and opportunity gaps that were decades in the making in K-12 systems. Most students are performing worse than before the pandemic. For students of color, there is a…

This special report provides context and examples of new legislation impacting preparation, certification, induction, professional development, evaluation and compensation for leaders of schools and districts.

Across the country, effort is underway to restrict discussion, learning, and student support related to race and gender/sexual identity in educational settings, targeting schools with state legislation and politicians' orders; national conservative media and organizations; Board directives; and local actors wielding media-fueled talking points. To…

The National School Lunch Program's (NSLP) original goal was to help students in need, but policy changes in the past decade have made students from middle-income and upper-income families eligible for federally funded school meals. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), an expansion of the NSLP enacted in 2010, effectively created a federal…

Response to Intervention (RTI) has become the gateway to identification for many students with specific learning disabilities. Those include students in the 17 states that require RTI as the source of eligibility data as well as many students in the 33 states that allow districts to choose RTI among other options (e.g., discrepancy). There is…

Using state-representative teacher surveys in three states--Texas, Ohio, and Kentucky--we examine teachers' implementation of college- and career-readiness (CCR) standards. What do teachers report about the specificity, authority, consistency, power, and stability of their standards environment? How does their policy environment predict…

Using state-representative teacher surveys in three states--Texas, Ohio, and Kentucky--we examine teachers' implementation of college- and career-readiness (CCR) standards. What do teachers report about the specificity, authority, consistency, power, and stability of their standards environment? How does their policy environment predict…

The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL), examines through four lines of study to determine how college- and career-readiness (CCR) standards are implemented, if they improve student learning, and what instructional tools measure and support their implementation. This brief presents findings from C-SAIL's…

We extend the work of Cowen and Fowles by examining contracts in Kentucky school districts with collective bargaining. Using document analysis, we sought to answer the following research question: Do key provisions of teacher contracts change over time? We also examine the most recently negotiated contract in Louisville schools (2013-2018). We…

Presenters at the State of the States Roundtable session at the 2014 National Education Finance Conference in Louisville were invited to submit their papers for publication. These papers address the following topics: (1) State issues affecting P-12 and/or higher education funding; (2) Funding priorities/trends for P-12 and/or higher education; (3)…

Purpose: This article examines factors that affect school board policy making about student diversity within two southern urban-suburban school districts experiencing changing demographics: Jefferson County Public Schools and the Wake County Public School System. Both districts have a history of voluntary integration efforts, and research shows…